Ever since the Duronto was introduced between Mumbai and Howrah, it had been my earnest desire to travel on this train to determine, for myself, whether Didi's pet trains could recapture the aura of the two Rajdhanis in the 80s. I thoroughly enjoyed my trip and was quite impressed with the prompt service, cleanliness, courteous behavior of the staff, and the consistent runs throughout. The only unscheduled halt of the train within a station was Manmad. It skipped stations such as Kharagpur, Chakradharpur, Raurkela, Jharsuguda, Raigarh, Raipur (bypassed using the Urkura-Sanora bypass), Durg, Gondia, Badnera, Akola, Nasik Road, Kalyan. All these have been captured on video! If not for an extended halt at Nagpur outer and at Bhusaval, it would have reached Mumbai before time. What impressed me was that the train maintainined a consistent 80 kmph. average speed (as measured from the...
more... originating point - Howrah) almost till Bilaspur. Besides catering to end-to-end passengers, the non-stop nature of the train has one more advantage - minimal chance of theft, since movement of passengers at the technical halts is watched carefully. If you consider all Durontos, this particular train has set a new landmark since it is a cool 3 hours faster than the fastest ever achieved between HWH and CSTM before (by the Gitanjali in the 70s and early 80s). My hats off to this train and hoping that its impressive runs are maintained in years to come.